American University Anime Society’s Blog

I know what you’re thinking, how could I watch a romance. Well, I didn’t expect it either, I just decided to check it out because I heard it was a new twist on the old William Shakespeare play, and I do enjoy some Shakespeare. But besides the naming of a handful of characters the story is different from Shakespeare’s play.

The anime takes place in the floating city of Neo Verona, and I must say I want one of the horse things that fly in the sky. The story follows, of course, Romeo and Juliet. Juliet’s family is killed off in the first few seconds of the anime and then jumps forward about 14 years to when Juliet turns 16. Juliet lived her life during those years dressing as a boy due to the new Duke holding “girl hunts” to try and find the last survivor of the Capulet brood so there is no one to oppose his reign. Juliet, however has created the Red Whirlwind to fight against the Duke while not revealing who she is, even though she had no clue who she was. Then one night Juliet runs into Romeo and then the love story begins… There is a magical mysterious tree and a weird caretaker of the tree named after another of Shakespeare’s characters from a different play, Ophelia (I wonder if they’ll make her drown, again). I was watching this religiously over the summer for awhile and then got fed up with the fansubbers being really slow. Hopefully they’ll catch up soon.

It’s slated for 26 episodes. I think this would be a good one shot because they misspell William Shakespeare in the title for the first few episodes, got to love Engrish. But besides something different for a one shot I doubt this is an anime for everyone to watch since it is a romance and some of the characters get a bit irritating because of how shallow some of them seem. I’m hoping they will do some character development or stop making Romeo suck a wuss.

I give Romeo x Juliet a 3/5.